Man who allegedly abducted his kids held on $100,000 bond in Broward

Megan Bryant, 15, was found with two siblings aboard father James Ray Bryants… (National Center for Missing…)

March 28, 2012|Wayne K. Roustan and Juan Ortega, Sun Sentinel

FORT LAUDERDALE — With FBI agents hovering nearby, a Montana mother was reunited with her three children in Broward on Wednesday.

The abduction of the three siblings last summer in South Florida was the start of a monthslong search for their alleged kidnappers: their father, James Ray Bryant, 44, and his wife, Angela Bryant, 45, the children’s stepmother.

The Bryants found refuge with the children in the Bahamas until about two weeks ago, when the group sailed back to South Florida, according to Dustin Lensing, the Belgrade, Mont., police detective leading the multi-agency investigation.

The search came to a dramatic conclusion when the crew of the 110-foot Coast Guard Cutter Ocracoke intercepted Bryant’s vessel, the Coast Guard said.

The family expedition began to unravel this past weekend, when Angela Bryant was arrested in Hawaii. She gave authorities enough information for them to apprehend her husband about 30 miles off Pompano Beach on Tuesday, Lensing said.

James Bryant and his children were aboard a 40-foot sailboat on their way back to the Bahamas, officials said.

Wednesday, the children’s primary guardian — Bryant’s ex-wife, Kelly, of Belgrade, Mont. — was “ecstatic” about traveling to Broward County to be reunited with her children, who are “fine and healthy,” Lensing said.

“She’s very pleased,” Lensing said. “She has been missing her kids. She has missed birthdays and holidays with them.”

Kelly Bryant flew into Broward on Wednesday afternoon. Her children had spent the previous 24 hours in an emergency shelter. Holding them any longer would have required court permission, according to DCF spokesman Mark Riordan.

“What we’ve been able to do is provide a safe place for the children so they could be reunified with their mother,” he said.

At a Broward court hearing Wednesday, James Bryant was ordered held on $100,000 bond on the charge of interfering with parenting. He and his wife, who faces the same charge, are expected to be extradited to Montana as early as Thursday, officials said.

If convicted, each would face up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

The investigation began last summer after Megan Alyssa Bryant, 14, Maxwell Reed Bryant, 13, and Sebastian Evan Bryant, 11, traveled from Montana to visit their father and his wife in South Florida for a couple of weeks.

James and Angela Bryant were living on their catamaran in Key Biscayne at the time, Lensing said.

The children were scheduled to fly home Aug. 17. In an instant, the Bryants vanished with the kids, Lensing said. Montana authorities tried phoning the children to no avail.

“All we know is their cellphones went off,” Lensing said. “The cellphones might have been thrown overboard for all we know.”

Authorities feared James Bryant left U.S. waters with the children and began investigating, Lensing said. Bryant set sail during hurricane season, he said. “We were genuinely worried that something very bad could happen,” Lensing said.

As detectives investigated, they established that the Bryants were living in the Bahamas by monitoring their Internet activity and cellphone records, he said. Officials began arranging extraditions through the U.S. Department of State, but faced delays from bureaucratic red tape.

“If they’re in a foreign country, it just makes it a very difficult process,” Lensing said. “No matter what country it is, even if extradition treaties are in place.”

That all changed about two weeks ago, when the Bryants traveled back to South Florida, he said.

Police received an anonymous tip that Angela Bryant had taken a flight from Miami to Hawaii, where she was arrested in connection with the abduction, he said.

“She was picked up on the spot,” Lensing said.

Angela Bryant told police that her spouse and the children still were in South Florida. Police asked the Coast Guard to start scouring the Atlantic.

A Customs and Border Protection aircrew searched the waters for a “couple of days straight” until they found the family’s sailboat, Lensing said. “We suspected they wouldn’t be far from the boat,” Lensing said.

The sailboat was intercepted by the Coast Guard cutter and a crew from the Fort Lauderdale Coast Guard station. In addition to Bryant and his kids, also aboard were a dog, cat, snake and lizard — presumably pets, officials said.